A cold-chain is a temperature-controlled supply chain that is used to extend and help ensure the shelf life of various products that may be benefit from cold temperature storage and/or transit. For example, cold-chain shipments may be utilized for products such as fresh agricultural produce, seafood, frozen food, photographic film, chemicals, and pharmaceutical drugs. Typical regulatory requirements and/or manufacturer preferences may state a range of temperatures, i.e., an upper and lower temperature limit, for which cold-chain shipments must comply. That is, products shipped via a cold chain are typically required to maintain their temperature during transit within this upper and lower temperature limit.
To accomplish this, typical cold chain shipments may utilize refrigerated warehouses and/or refrigerated transportation, such as refrigerated trucks, for example. Furthermore, cold-chain shipments may also utilize insulated shipping containers and/or specialized packaging. Specialized packaging may include, for example, phase change materials such as frozen ice packs, gel packs, dry ice, etc. When specialized packaging is used, however, the same packaging is typically used without regard to the changes in temperature or weather conditions along the transit route. In other words, the same size shipping container and the layout of phase change materials and/or dunnage within the shipping container may be used for each cold-chain shipment.
As a result, a particularly hot or cold transit route may result in temperature excursions. Furthermore, because temperature fluctuations along the route are unaccounted for, money may be wasted when a particular cold-chain product is shipped along a transit route using an unnecessary or excessive amount of phase change materials. Therefore, although cold-chain shipments are vital to several industries, improvements may be made to the logistic processes used for such shipments.